State of the Left: Squeezed from all sides

26 June 2015

Squeezed from all sides

One of the few electoral bright spots for
the European centre left in recent years was Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s
victory in the 2011 Danish general election. Last week, however, her
Social Democrats lost office, thus continuing the trend which has seen
no major centre-left governing party in Europe win re-election since the
onset of the crisis.

As Kristian Weise details for this month’s State of the Left, there was a
paradox in the result: the Social Democrats gained votes and seats but,
thanks to a rise in support for the populist right, the left bloc
narrowly lost power. There are clear parallels with Labour’s defeat in
Britain last month in which Ukip – eating into the party’s support in
many places – played a role. The Danish People’s party's strong
second-place finish came on the back of not only its anti-immigration
stance, but also a pledge to defend the welfare state. Whether the
centre left claims to be tough on immigration – as both Labour and
Thorning-Schmidt did – or not, it loses.

The result confirms that, amid fears about economic insecurity,
immigration and the EU, the populist right poses a potent threat to many
of the centre-left’s traditional sources of support. The need for the
left to develop a response which marries a programme for economic change
with an inclusive narrative around national identity is highlighted by
Katrine Marçal, who reports from Sweden on the plight of Scandinavia’s
sole remaining centre-left government.

What of Europe’s other social democratic parties which are in
government? The picture is largely bleak. Jérémie Gagné finds the
Germany SPD unable to capitalise in the polls on its creditable record
as Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner. In France, Gérard Grunberg
suggests few Socialists believe Francois Hollande can win re-election
(although his reformist prime minister, Manuel Valls, remains popular
and emerged stronger from a recent party congress). And in Italy, voters
fired a warning shot across Matteo Renzi’s bows in last month’s
regional and local elections. From the latter, at least, the message to
the prime minister, believes Mattia Guidi, may be that his efforts to
reform the Democratic party may not have gone far enough. In government
or on the opposition benches, there is, perhaps, a wider lesson in that
for social democrats across the continent.

After almost 10 years of Conservative
government, Canadians have clearly had enough. The leader of the
centre-left New Democratic party, Thomas Mulcair, has a clear shot at
becoming prime minister after the upcoming election